Impossible Expectations
by Kynater
Summary: It's really hard to live up to perfection and have the hopes and dreams of a million people all on you, but Ed deals with it and he copes.


**A/N**: Just a little drabble I wrote because I've got so much angst that I don't know how to express otherwise other than killing off all my favorite characters in horribly ironic ways.

I've got little bits in parentheses that are just Ed's ramblings that I love to see in stories that I wanted to try out so there it is...

**Warnings**: None that I can think of other than some pessimism and Ed tearing himself down on the inside

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Fullmetal Alchemist_ anime, manga, or movie adaptions

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For being known to be such cynical people, the military really did put a lot of their expectations on him. Even when he only just got into the military and he was just a 12-year-old brat, he knew that people put all this _hope_ onto him as the Hero of the People.

Sure, he had been through a lot of things that other people couldn't even begin to fathom. He had done unbelievable, impossible things and came out alive where any other people who had even attempted to do as he had ended up dead.

(awful _horrible_ prolonged deaths that hurt so much and made you feel like you were just going to stop existing right at that moment because all the millions of tiny little _black_ hands that were everywhere and he couldn't see were _grabbing_ him and _pulling_ and _pulling_ him apart and he felt like he was going to _explode _because they were putting things into his head that he didn't even know, and then)

Yeah, he had done a transmutation that killed all the countless others in the past

(people who just wanted to see somebody _precious_ again after countless years and months or sometimes it was just days but they never survived came back because once you try something so improbably _terrifying_ no one should ever have to be able to come back _less_ than what they were when the came _in_ both physically and mentally because you could never be normal again)

who had tried what he had all those years ago and made it out just barely alive. He knows he does

(had done he really doesn't do them anymore because one day it'll be too much and Alphonse will really lose everything and dying meant giving up and he _won't_ ever give up)

impossible things, but that doesn't mean he's perfect.

All their expectations were wearing him thin. He knew he wasn't perfect and he's done so many horrible things. How could people think he was perfect? He doesn't even seem able to even look at himself in a mirror because he's got two metal limbs that he has to look at every single day and he put Al in a metal suit, and they're constant reminders of the horrible things he's done since he was little. Why would perfection put their little brother in an empty shell?

It was his entire fault. When Mom died, _he_ had been the one to suggest to Al

(poor little brother Alphonse with the great big heart and trusting nature he has even now in that great big cold suit of armor when people don't even know what he's feeling or thinking because nobody can express themselves through expressionless metal no matter how sympathetic and empathetic they could be)

that the two of them should try and do human transmutation to bring back the mother who took care of them all by herself even when Hohenhiem

(that bastard of a father that finally came back a little too late and then just does the most stupidest things just to get his two kids back and he doesn't really mind because Hohenhiem might be a bit of a dumbass but at least he came back and that's more than he can say for some people)

had left. And they really did think that they could do it. They were so naïve and innocent, how could they have known that something known as the ultimate taboo would cause something so, so horrible.

They were just two little boys that wanted to see their mom smile one more time.

(it was just one more time seeing a warm friendly smile on the face of the most perfect person two little boys had ever known and it seemed like if it was for her everything would be okay in the end)

It might have been too much to ask, but did Truth really have to take his little brother away? He knows that he could never and would never ask Truth to take him instead because that would mean leaving Alphonse alone. And he knows that being alone is a lot worse than people think of it as being.

If he had never told Al what to do, maybe Al would finally be able to feel the fur of all the little abandoned cats he would always bring home. And with Al back in his body, he would finally be able to do all the things he wrote down on that list. And then he would be able to watch his little brother's face light up because he can finally taste the food or feel the sun on his skin or just being able to express himself physically now.

It was as if all the people he met couldn't seem to notice that one, tiny, abysmal fact. But he saw that fact every time he saw Al looking so impossibly sad for a soul in an empty suit of armor. If he could see it, why couldn't everyone else try to see too? If they just watched a little closely, they would really just see two incredibly broken boys who just want to save each other.

All those amazing and impossible things he's done before, what did all of that mean to God – World – Universe – One – All – him? Because if he couldn't even save a tiny, little girl in the rain, then of what use was he?

They put all their impossibly large expectations – the weight of the whole world – onto his shoulders… and he doesn't think he can live up to all of that this time around. Because all these hopes being put on him are the hopes and dreams of a people who don't have a voice and aren't being heard. If he didn't have these expectations of a gleaming future on his shoulders, he doesn't think people in Amestris would ever have much hope anymore.

But he could never let anybody hear those thoughts in his head. All the people who would so willingly help him would worry and fret over him when all of them had their own problems to deal with

(even though he _knows_ that they don't think he's a burden, but he was so stupid and reckless, acting like he shouldn't even be able to live but sometimes he really does believe he shouldn't because look at what he's done to ruin the life of little brother Alphonse)

and he would be impossibly selfish if he were to do that to all the people who cared enough to even so much as look his way or remember his name.

So this time, like every other time before this one, he would keep standing, tall and proud with gleaming eyes and his head set defiantly on shoulders that bore the weight of a million and one expectations. And he would refuse to back down because he'd be sacrificing the bright hopes and dreams of the future to be selfishly happy if he didn't. He refused to let anyone or everyone know that he wasn't as good or perfect as they thought he was. But he'll try just like all the other times and that was the best he could give them.

And maybe – just maybe, just this one time, he'll finally be able to be good enough. For all of them.

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**A/N**: Tell me what you think. This was more of me rambling than anything but I've always wanted to write using this style with bits of thoughts that make people sound sort of insane...

Reviews are like cookies. Some are really soft and some are small and some are really large while some are really crunchy and kinda hard, but they're all made of love. Unless you're a SoB and make cookies out of crap that makes me want to puke and beat you with it. The cookies not my puke.


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